


The Inheritance of the Millennium Falcon

by Snowleopardferret



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Culture Shock, Emotional Support Droid BB-8, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Leia Organa more like General Mom, M/M, Mentions of Disordered/Defensive Eating, Multi, Not quite an AU, Okay who am I kidding this counts as an AU now, PTSD, Poe Hot Damneron, Polyamory, Rey can definitely be read as Autistic here, Rey is a feral sand child and needs to learn how to people, SCREW IT GUYS LET'S REWRITE TLJ, Space Socialism, Stormpilot, Stormtrooper Culture, Survivor Guilt, jedistormpilot, liberties taken with canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-17 06:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5858134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowleopardferret/pseuds/Snowleopardferret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starkiller Base is destroyed. The galaxy is in mourning and the Resistance has sustained heavy losses. General Organa is stretched thin under the burdens of grief and political duties. While the map is now complete, the path is not yet safe - like it or not, it may be a few weeks before Luke Skywalker can be retrieved.<br/>Our golden trio use the delay to piece themselves back together after the events of the last few weeks. Rey struggles to process as she discovers that almost every facet of her life is now irrevocably changed, the social environment as alien to her as the lakes and forests of D’Qar. Poe balances military duties with comforting his honorary mother and guiding the new kids as they recover, perhaps ignoring his own needs in the process. Finn works to establish a sense of identity outside of his training and serial number, baffled by the care and attention he receives as he recovers physically.<br/>None of them know what to do when feelings complicate things further.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

With the destruction of the Hosnian system and the untimely death of most of The Galactic Senate, an immeasurable burden had fallen onto the shoulders of General Leia Organa. History was repeating itself in the most twisted, terrifying spiral, each fresh rendition of ancient events more powerful, more painful, the stakes constantly being raised in some horrifying celestial game of chance. Hundreds of thousands of lives, from beloved representatives of far flung systems to innocent civilians, ancient groves of trees and newborn animals, best friends and ex lovers and everything these lives meant, all that was and could have been, snuffed out in a second over something as unbelievably petty as a political dispute.

Every single life lost she counted as a deeply personal failure. She had failed to warn the senate of the impending threat from the First Order, her eagerness to rally against an old enemy under a new banner woefully misinterpreted as warmongering extremism, and now the tragedy that had befallen her home so many years ago had been repeated at five times the scale.

Leia Organa was by no means the sole remaining politician in the galaxy, but the work left behind after such a disaster was nothing to sneeze at. The loss of politicians and organization did not dissolve the duties these souls held, and Leia knew better than most the sort of things that could happen if the business left to the senate was just dropped. There were outstanding requests for aid from far distant systems dealing with their own disasters, regulations to enforce, a thousand little pieces of minutiae that would not seem so insignificant to the systems and lives they directly impact, and each duty dropped by the Galactic Senate was an opportunity for the First Order to step in and take over. In times of chaos, the offer of support and order would be all the more appealing, and even with the loss of Starkiller Base, the First Order stood in prime position to become what the Empire once was.

When the numbers had started to roll in, names of the deceased and thousands of requests for confirmation from halfway across the galaxy that loved ones were alive and far too many names from the later written on the former, Leia had sequestered herself in her office with a datapad. On one tab she monitored the holonet, kept track of the information that was slowly being disseminated across the Galaxy. On another tab she worked on her statement, the bulk of it written but stuck in translation hell, scrambling to choose words that would not lose context or gain unwanted connotations in any of the hundreds of commonly translated languages - an ultimately futile task, especially considering she needed it to have a certain emotional honesty - and in yet another tab she busied herself collecting a proper list of the dead and organizing memorial services for those lost.

Even if Leia wasn’t emotionally compromised, the tasks in front of her would be overwhelming. She found herself scattered, trying to be too many people in too many places, stretched thin with no one she could justify leaning on. Leia Organa was many things, but an infinite wellspring of strength and patience was, unfortunately, not one of those things. Not infinite at least. For now, she was finding a strained sort of barrier against dealing with her losses by busying herself with her formal duties, but the moments between tasks still found her reaching out for Han’s support. They had known each other completely. Were Han here, he would have baited her into a petty squabble over something meaningless, given her an outlet for this building pool of guilt and blame and grief and frustration, but how could Han save her from her distress, when his absence was the very thing clawing at her heart?

She blamed herself intimately for all of this. As clouded by stress and indecision as she was, even her hindsight wasn’t clear, but somehow she knew this had been her doing. It would be most sensible to blame this on her lack of political success when the First Order began to surface, but as egotistical as it might be, she blamed this more on her failings as a human being. As a mother. Had she been there for Ben, had she known better what to do when he began to show force sensitivity, he would not have been vulnerable to Snoke. She shouldn’t have sent him off to Luke for training when Luke himself barely knew what training should be - and it wasn’t exactly Luke’s fault that he didn’t immediately and gracefully rebuild a centuries old order based on half remembered traditions. If she had kept her family together, if she had planned better and settled somewhere permanent and been able to set aside political duties and actually pay attention to her son, she wouldn’t be alone now. There would not be a Sith Apprentice among the ranks of the First Order. She would still have Han to lean on.

It had been a good hour since Leia had actually gotten any work done. The quiet that she had expected to bring her peace and center her had, in fact, given her an opportunity to begin to feel grief. It was neither welcome nor useful to wonder, with each name she had added to the deceased, how many others now were missing pieces of their souls. The knocking at her door was, surprisingly, welcome.

“Come in.” Leia sat up and set aside the datapad, having to blink a few times to get her eyes to focus properly.

“Hey, General…” It was odd to see Poe Dameron in anything other than good spirits. The child was usually such a wellspring of positive energy, it was sobering to see him looking as exhausted as she felt. “Sorry to bother you, I just need your clearance to get the Falcon resupplied and looked over before we leave. BB-8’s got the full copy of the map in his system, and we should be able to head out within the hour.”

“Well, in that case, it is a very good thing you’ve come to me first.” Leia sat forward, briefly pinching the bridge of her nose to try to ward off the headache that had been threatening her for hours. “Not to say that I don’t appreciate your initiative, or that retrieving Luke has somehow become less of a priority, but I’m grounding that particular venture for a few days at least.”

“...What?” Poe looked very much like he was trying to discern exactly how serious Leia was being here. “General, you can’t be serious. With all due respect, we have to move on this now. While the First Order is still reeling, before they can-” He gestured vaguely, implying nameless doom and destruction.

“We have to do no such thing, Dameron. I understand where you are coming from, you don’t want to lose the forward momentum we have, but you are assuming that knocking out one base has crippled their entire operation. Until a few days ago, we didn’t even know Starkiller existed - the rest of their organization still stands.”

“I’m afraid I don’t see your point here, ma’am.” Poe pressed the matter. “The First Order still exists, therefore we can’t move against them? Why are you so afraid of those bastards?”

“Poe Dameron.” She scolded him like a mother. “Use your head. We have every reason to believe that the portion of the map R2 had in his memory files isn’t the only copy of the thing. The vast -majority of the route you are intending to blindly follow that isn’t known to the First Order is the last stretch. What possible benefit would finding Luke be if you’re bringing a tail of stormtroopers down upon his head?”

“Then we’ll take a different ship, something less easy to track, just me and the Jedi girl. We’ll follow parallel routes, or-”

“Or you’ll give me time to call on a few contacts and I can clear the route reliably for you.” It was becoming difficult to keep her voice level. Normally, she appreciated the blunt, familiar atmosphere she had cultivated among the resistance, but at times like this she wished her men were a little bit more mindful of rank.

“This is ridiculous, we’re losing precious time. We should have been gone hours ago, if Han were - oh shit.”

Poe was at least mindful enough to realize his misstep. He clapped a hand over his mouth, horror in his eyes as the most tense, painfully strained silence filled the room. Leia took a minute to collect herself.

“Be that as it may, Han is not here, Poe.” She was surprisingly calm, her tone carefully measured. “I find myself running short on family. Forgive my reluctance to put what little I have left in any sort of danger whatsoever. Leaping first and looking second was Han’s specialty, not mine.”

“Shit, sorry mom, I didn’t mean to-”

“I know, child. It’s fine” She waved a hand, gesturing for Poe to take a seat. “There is plenty to attend to here, while you wait for clearance. I highly doubt there is a single ship in our fleet that does not require repairs of some sort or another. Besides,” Leia offered the boy a knowing look. “I highly doubt you’d be too pleased with yourself if you weren’t around to greet your wayward stormtrooper when he wakes up.”

“Right, right, Finn.” Poe laughed to cover his discomfort. “I’m sorry, General, you’re absolutely right, I’ll trust your judgement.”

“In a few hours I’m going to call for a sweep of what remains of the Hosnian system, in case any passing cruisers got caught up in the blasts, or however else life may have survived that disaster. I’ll want you to lead that.”

“Yes, General.” Leia knew firsthand the kind of relief that having an actual task could bring in times like this. “Is that everything?” He stood, preparing to leave.

“More or less, for now. Oh, and Poe?” She held up her hand, silently requesting that he stay for a moment longer.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“You did good out there, better than I could have hoped. I’m proud of you. I know the instinct is to blame yourself for your fallen, and I don’t pretend I can tell you how to mourn them properly, but try to make time for the ones we still have with us, hmm?”

“I could say the same to you.” He laughed, the warmth of the sound not quite reaching his eyes. “Take care of yourself, alright?”


	2. Rey - Establishing A Camp

There was an overwhelming amount of activity at the Resistance base, beyond anything Rey had experienced so far. Then again, the last few days had been full of an awful lot of overwhelming and new experiences for the sand child, and so far this one did not seem to be actively hazardous to her health. Rey felt incredibly out of place on the bustling resistance base, like so much scrap metal sitting next to a top of the line speeder. Hundreds of people and droids were swarming the hangar, tending to the fleet that was more than halved since it set out. Rey had all but glued herself to a wall to keep out of the way, but available should someone need her.

With the return of the ships from the Starkiller battle, Rey had half expected the base on D’Qar to… I don’t know. Calm down a little? The battle was over, they should be able to relax. Unfortunately, reality had a way of defying her expectations. Things were almost worse now, the air heavy with anger and frustration and grief, arguments springing up left and right. Half of the base appeared to be convinced that if they just went on as if everything were normal, it would become normal again. Rey understood that sentiment, at least.

Rey genuinely had never seen a group of people behave like this, especially one with mixed species members. It truly was a different world here, she couldn’t have imagined in her wildest dreams something so far removed from the desert she had called her home. Among the scavengers on Jakku, there had been no such comradery. A hundred of them could barely share a trading post in peace, let alone work in harmony. There was no such thing as teamwork when resources were so thin, and Rey had always known that survival mandated independence.

Her newly awakened force sensitivity was of no help to her at the moment. In a moment of desperation, with her life on the line, Rey had been able to bridge the gap between minds. Now, it would appear she was beginning to become passively sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others. It was a delightful skill to have but it could not have set in at a worse time. She was already overwhelmed by the sensory input she was used to - it was cold and the air was moist, it clung to her skin in the most unpleasant way, there was so much noise in the hangar, so many different voices and different languages talking over each other and droids trilling away in binary, the occasional unendingly loud metallic screech from seemingly random directions as mechanics did their work, sparks flying in bright flashes and X-Wings being manually towed between hangar bays, and she wasn’t able to focus in enough to pick out what any individual was doing. She knew there was purpose and meaning to everything these people were doing. It was a perfectly choreographed dance, Rey was certain that it would be beautiful to her if she had a little more bearing on the world around her, but right now it was just an overstimulating din. Layer on top of that strange wisps of emotional information, loud thoughts - and who would have known that thoughts could be loud, of all things - and everything else filtering through the Force that Rey did not yet have a name for, and Rey was about ready to run and hide. Regroup and tackle this mess again later.

Rey jumped when something nudged her firmly in the back of her calf. She spun around to find BB-8 peering innocently up at her - and how precisely a droid managed to pull off innocent puppy eyes was beyond her. Apparently, according to the expressive little thing, he had been trying to get her attention for a few minutes.

“Goodness, I’m sorry little one.” Rey knelt down to his level, some strange instinct to be respectful to something that couldn’t possibly feel emotions. “I couldn’t hear you over all this racket, I don’t know how anyone can hear themselves think in this mess, let alone get anywhere or do anything.”

BB-8 chirped and rocked a little on the spot, and Rey laughed in response.

“Why yes, I’m quite sure taking people out at the shins is an excellent way to expedite travel, but it’s not polite. You should be mindful of that.” She scolded the little orb playfully, grinning a little despite herself.

BB-8 at least had the decency to look appropriately scolded, making that sad little noise as he ducked his head down. The damn thing was adorable, and Rey found herself reaching out to pet it, significantly more calm than she had been a minute ago.

“You are a remarkable little creature. Are you sure you’re not alive?”

“You know, sometimes I’ve got questions about that myself, and I practically built him.” Rey just about jumped out of her skin, spinning around yet again to find who had snuck up on her. The voice had been warm and friendly, and she recognized immediately the same humor in the eyes of the man approaching.

BB-8 trilled and zoomed over, and it was comforting enough to see the instinct to kneel and pet the droid wasn’t just a Rey thing. There was something immediately captivating about this man, tousled hair and kind eyes - he looked like he had been born for that flight suit. Rey drew back from frustratedly examining his jawline, because being that attractive wasn’t fair, just in time to catch that the droid had addressed him as Poe.

“You’re Poe Dameron!” Rey exclaimed, perhaps a little louder than necessary. “You’re supposed to be dead. Or, I mean, that’s terribly rude of me, I’m sorry, it’s just, last I checked…”

“Apparently dead men make excellent pilots, who knew.” Poe laughed and the corners of his eyes crinkled. Even without BB-8 beeping away about it, Rey could just tell this was the man responsible for the ridiculously loyal droid. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you’re Rey, then? Because BB-8 doesn’t activate on his own for just anyone.”

“Last I checked, that’s me.” She laughed awkwardly - that had been much more witty in her head. “You’ve heard of me?”  
“You know it. Even without BB-8 singing your praises - which he won’t shut up about, let me tell you - you’re a pretty big deal around here.”

“Me?” Rey’s eyebrows shot up. That couldn’t be right - she hadn’t mattered to anyone, not ever. Hells, she had rarely heard her name out of anyone else’s mouth before the past few days. “You’re joking, right? Surely you’re joking.”

Poe shook his head. “Not a bit. You should have heard Finn, half the base knew he wanted to get you back.” Rey clapped a hand over her heart at that bit as Poe continued. “And then after that stunt you guys pulled, not only getting the shields down but blowing that hole in Starkiller for us? Look. Flat out, none of us know what went down in that base. I have a feeling I don’t particularly want to know. All I care about is you were a part of something that saved a whole lot of lives.”

“It was nothing, really. I didn’t do that much, and nothing anyone else wouldn’t have… did Finn really talk about me like that?” Finn was something of a painful subject at the moment. He’d been so badly hurt, and no matter how much the med droids had assured her he would be fine, the worry didn’t ease up a bit.

“Ask him yourself when he’s back on his feet.” Poe at least seemed to be having similar thoughts. “And don’t sell yourself short in the meantime. You did good, kid.” Poe got to his feet, muttering something ill-tempered about his back as he did. “Listen, I’ve got to take BB-8 for a bit, I’ve got an assignment, gonna do a few sweeps of the aftermath in Hosnian.”

“Why?” Rey knit her eyebrows, genuinely confused by that. “Not, not why are you taking BB-8, I understand that part. But why do a sweep of what’s basically an asteroid field right now? Isn’t it, not to be rude, but isn’t it a little pointless?”

“It’s more the principal of the thing. Even if the odds are infinitesimally small, we still do a sweep for survivors. It’s a respect thing, and honestly, having something to do, even if it’s more a symbolic thing, it… it helps the survivors guilt. We lost a lot of life, it’s kind of important to keep moving forward right now.”

“Then what about following up on that map? Wouldn’t that be a better use of time and resources?” Rey had been wondering about that.

Poe sighed heavily. “I already had a talk with the General about that. She’s grounding that mission until she knows for damn sure we’re going to be safe taking it. I don’t personally agree with her decision, but I get where she’s coming from. She’s taking this pretty hard, in her own way. She just doesn’t want anyone else in danger.”

Rey nodded along, surprised at how well she understood what he was on about, what he meant. “You’re all very tightly bonded, aren’t you…? I can’t imagine.”

“Hey, it’s alright, we’ve got this.” Poe smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes this time. “Anyway, I’ve got to get out of here. I should be back sometime before dawn, but don’t worry about waiting up. Make yourself comfortable, settle in, and I’ll catch up with you later, alright?”

“Oh no, I’ve kept you long enough. We’ll catch up later.” She agreed, and BB-8 chirped loudly, a little offended he was being left out of the goodbyes. “You too, BB-8.” She laughed.

“Good to meet you officially. Come on, BB-8, let’s get going.” Poe turned and headed off, BB-8 hot on his heels.

 

Rey watched the pilots work, inasmuch as one can from a distance and from the ground. It was clear to her how much respect the six remaining pilots had for their commander. It definitely opened her eyes - this hangar was built for so much more than this, even just judging by the number of hangar spots. It was surreal to think that, as overcrowded as she had considered the hangar to be a half hour ago, it probably felt so empty to the people who called this base a home.

When the pilots took off, the hangar slowly cleared out. Rey took full advantage of the lack of supervision to collect the supplies she would need to begin making this place her home as well. She had considered briefly taking up residence in the Falcon - it would be convenient, sitting out on the landing pad, and familiar enough to her hollowed out AT-AT back on Jakku - but ultimately, it felt a little wrong right now. A little disrespectful, and invasive of a dead man’s privacy. It was clear to her now how much this trash heap had meant to Han Solo, and Rey wasn’t about to cross that line. Not right now.

There were a few unattended tarps that Rey quickly scavenged, rolling them up tight and stuffing them into her pack before she moved on. They were torn and worn thin anyway, she hoped they wouldn’t be missed. She worked fast, with a keen eye for supplies she would need to settle in here. She couldn’t find any food, but by the sounds of it, there would be small game in the woods.

Sufficiently supplied with what others would consider useless scrap, Rey paused briefly on the landing bay to lovingly pat the Millennium Falcon. She considered the ship her friend in the same way she considered BB-8 her friend - Rey knew full well these particular machines did not actually possess souls, but they held enough significance in the minds of everyone who interacted with them that they might as well be alive.

 

The ground outside of the base, on D’Qar proper, was suitably alien to Rey. It wasn’t precisely difficult to navigate - the roots of trees were easy enough to step over, and the earth under her feet only had the slightest amount of give. Objectively, the sands of Jakku were a nightmare to walk compared to this. The shifting sands required a lot more balance and strength to get half of the distance that Rey was easily able to walk here, and it honestly startled her to turn around and find she had left the base so far behind her.

Rey judged the distance to be good enough so she wouldn’t be bothered by the activity on the base, but close enough that she could still keep an eye on things. She could still pick out details on the Falcon at this distance, and after a moment of searching she found a small almost-clearing that would be perfect for her informal camp.

Rey pulled out her tarps and spent a minute properly inspecting them. The one she judged the most waterproof and intact got the job of being the canopy of her tent. A moment of foraging provided several large rocks and two small ones, and with the small length of twine Rey had appropriated from the hangar, she now had what she needed. She lined the heavy rocks along one end of the tarp to anchor it. On the two remaining free corners, a few feet in from the proper edges of the fabric, Rey wrapped up the small pebbles in tarp and secured it with string. She ran the remaining string to nearby low hanging branches and pulled the whole rig tight. The end result was a fairly respectable tent, if a little on the small end. About two feet of fabric hung loosely around a triangular frame, providing Rey just enough room to curl up safely inside. She laid down the smallest of the tarps on the ground underneath, and draped the remaining fabric she had collected over the main frame.

The entire process took almost an hour, but Rey was rather proud of the result. Ingenuity and self sufficiency had always been mission critical to her survival, and it pleased her to be relatively assured that her skills did not vanish when she was removed from the sand. As a finishing touch, Rey kicked away the leaf litter and twigs in the surrounding area, properly claiming her little clearing for herself.

The matter of food still remained, Rey realized as much when her stomach started doing the painful little backflips that alerted her she’d… kind of forgotten about eating for a few days. Her last proper meal seemed to exist in an entirely different universe from where she was now - a quarter of a portion and the last of her water, consumed hastily in the safety of her old home.

Rey could at least solve the issue of thirst fairly immediately - she had made damn sure to follow the edge of a lake when she was hunting down her new spot, and now she had as much water as she could ever want just a few yards away. Water scarcity was a thing of the past here, and Rey was honestly thankful enough about that to care very little about the loss of a reliable method of earning food. The noises filtering through the forest indicated to her that there was abundant small game here, all she had to do was figure out how to catch it. She could definitely manage that.

It would turn out, in fact, that Rey could not manage that. Frustratingly, it would seem that small woodland animals were significantly smarter than a sand child with a quarterstaff. Not for want of effort, Rey’s hunting expedition was futile. She spent a good few hours attempting to sneak around the woods, and the closest she had come to even laying eyes on some of the native fauna was a retreating flash of a tail. As the sun began to set, Rey returned to camp empty handed, her ego severely wounded.

Hungry and exhausted and cold and damp, Rey retreated into her makeshift tent to get some sleep.


	3. Poe - Bonding

It surprised no one when the sweep of the Hosnian debris field turned up no signs of life. To be entirely blunt it was nothing more than glorified practice navigating asteroid fields, but for Poe Dameron, it helped him process the tragedy. It made the whole ordeal something real, something measurable, and therefore something he could deal with. Five planets, some hundred thousand lives. An unspeakable evil to be sure, but at the time when the Starkiller weapon had gone off, it had felt as if every soul in the universe had been snuffed out. Every star in the sky represented a system that had survived, represented hope and the potential to rebuild.

It did not feel like hours had passed when he returned to base, even though the sun was long gone out of the sky, soon to return for the new day. The restless energy still haunted Poe, and while he’d managed to center himself a little over the long flight, he still didn’t feel right with himself. He probably never would, he reasoned - things would change, new pilots would be enlisted under his command, new missions and new battles, and every new chapter required the one before it to close. It didn’t change the fact that he missed his friends from the old ones.

He had a choice. He could go try and get some sleep like the rest of his squad - lay awake in his cot for hours and reflect on the faces he’d never see again, the lives he’d failed and the friends he’d lost - or he could do something productive until he was so exhausted that sleep would just take him without asking questions first. Obviously, Poe Dameron opted for the latter.

Black One, or Blackbird as he called her, was a thing of beauty - no longer a factory standard T-70 by any means, he’d been piling up little improvements year by year, customizing things a little beyond what was technically regulation. It had started when a stray blaster bolt had left the tiniest bit of nerve damage in his left arm, almost a decade ago, and Poe had gone in to manually alter the flight controls to compensate for the minute difference. A few test flights later, with the assistance of perfectionism bordering upon the neurotic, and Poe had practically rebuilt the entire interface. Piece by piece he had put his hands on every component in Blackbird, and by now she handled so differently from the other ships in the fleet that she might as well be an entirely different model.

He’d been toying with the idea of adding a little to the sensory array in her nose for a few months now, to give BB-8 a little more data to work with on the fly. Now was as good a time as any to tinker around with it, as the hangar was all but empty and he would be able to bogart all the good tools.

Poe shoo’d a particularly worried BB-8 to his charging station, assuring him everything would be fine and he could enter standby mode for a few hours - a ritual that required at least three promises to wake BB-8 before he went to sleep, even though the little shit was more than capable of noticing on its own if he forgot. BB-8 filled a few critical requirements for Poe. It was important to him to feel needed - he’d been military for his entire life, moved all across the galaxy, lost his parents, lost friends - it was good to have a constant presence, something that seemed to actually need him, wanted him around, would miss him if he left. But it was just as important that BB-8 was actually self sufficient, and nothing bad would actually happen if Poe couldn’t muster the energy to get out of bed for a week. Motivation to keep going without guilt or anxiety tied in.

You know what definitely did cause anxiety, though? Being halfway inside the nose of an X-Wing with a welding torch in your hand, so far lost in your own head, and having someone sneak up on you.

“Are the sensors acting up?” He hadn’t even heard Rey approach.

Poe yelped and dropped his tools, stood up far too fast and cracked his head on a crossbeam. Like a proper military man, Poe definitely taught Rey a few new words before he managed to extract himself from the ship.

She looked damn near proud of herself for scaring him like that, and Poe had enough of a sense of humor to laugh it off. “You just spring up out of the machines don’t you? I didn’t hear you coming at all. Gotta be careful, sneaking up on a guy like that.”

“I’m sorry.” She clearly wasn’t sorry. “I’m just curious, your ship wasn’t damaged on the mission, was it?”

“Pfft, nah. Might have skimmed a little paint off her at one point, but no damage. I’m just tinkering at this point, trying to see if I can get better sensor data to BB-8 to work with. Got the new sensors mostly installed, just messing with wiring now.”

“Aah, so that’s what that disaster is all about.” Rey was peering over his shoulder, eyeing the (disastrous) tangle of wires Poe hadn’t finished wrestling with yet. “If you’re not careful you’re going to knock out your subspace comm, you know. Or your emergency beacon, and I’m not exactly sure which would be worse.”

“And you can get all that from a glance?” Poe was, frankly, a little put out that she wasn’t impressed by his work. It was the tiniest little glancing blow to his ego - but he definitely did need to be knocked down a peg here. There was a reason he had put off this little experiment for so long, and that’s precisely because it was going to be a nightmare. “You worked on one of these before, I take it?”

“Oh absolutely. Well, not exactly like yours - older models, and none of them were by any means in working order anymore. But the best haul I ever got was from an X-Wing. Yellow Four - I ate for days off of that.” The entire time she spoke, she was examining the Blackbird like a hawk, craning her neck around to peer inside the hull.

“Do you wanna get up here and take a look?” Poe offered. “I could use a second set of eyes on this thing, and you clearly know what you’re doing here.”

“Can I?” Poe had rarely seen that sort of unbridled joy on the face of a grown adult.

“Absolutely. If you’ve got any suggestions for my wiring disaster I’d love to hear it, too.” He laughed, not even bothering to use the ladder to get down. No sooner had his feet hit the ground than Rey practically launched herself into the Blackbird to take a look.

“Oh wow. What in all the hells have you done in here?” Poe looked on as Rey was rather immediately elbow deep in cables, disappearing behind the panels of the hull like she could swim through hardware. “One of these is installed backwards.”

“No it’s not!” Immediately indignant, Poe climbed a few steps back up the ladder to get a look at what she was on about.

“It absolutely is. This one, see, its supposed to be a mirror image of this one over here, but you just repeated the process without flipping it first… Here, hand me that screwdriver and I’ll get it.”

“No way, you’re just…” Poe paused to actually consider what she was saying, and groaned dramatically when he realized Rey was exactly right. Resigned to his fate, he passed her the tool she needed. “Actually, yeah, if you could just get that for me, your hands are smaller anyway. In my defense, I am very, very tired. I swear I’m usually smart.”

It took a few solid hours to finish up the project, a massive improvement on the nebulous few days he was expecting. Rey definitely knew what she was doing in an X-Wing - only once or twice had Poe had to explain how something in there worked, and those were all things he had tweaked beyond recognition long ago. It was nice to have someone else in his particular school of ‘just wing it’ mechanics to talk with - he’d had one too many lectures about regulations being there for a reason.

Before he knew it, he felt the familiar nudge of solid spherical metal on his shins - BB-8 had woken up to come remind Poe to eat, and the insistent binary chirps of his astromech friend made it very clear that this wasn’t a suggestion.

“Alright, alright little buddy, ease up. You don’t have to fight me on this one. Can you do me a favor though? Climb on up into Blackbird and calibrate the new sensors. I’ll get some food while you do.”

He laughed and patted the droid’s head lovingly, and BB-8 chirped in agreement before rolling off to interface with the X-Wing.

“Hey Rey, you hungry yet?” He called up into the inner workings. Something in the pause before she replied worried him.

“If I’m entirely honest, I’m a bit past merely hungry.” She laughed nervously, and it hit Poe like a sideswipe from a Star Destroyer that she’d probably never had a consistent supply of food in her life.

“We should both head down to the mess hall, before BB-8 comes for our shins.” Poe laughed playfully, and BB-8 chimed in with agreement.

“The what? Where are we going?” Rey dropped out of the hull, falling into step at his side as Poe led the way.

“Mess hall. It’s where we all eat, basically just a large room with a buffet table. They change out the menu about three times a day. It shouldn’t be too crowded right now, lunch rush isn’t for another few hours. Still technically a late breakfast, so I can at least pretend I’m on a normal schedule.”

Rey could probably outsmart Poe in terms of mechanical knowledge, but right now he might as well have been speaking in Huttese, by the looks of her face. “So… it’s a lot of food. But what do you have to do to earn it?”

Poe might have laughed if it wasn’t so sad. “It doesn’t work that way. We don’t have to trade in work for food here, it’s a benefit of being a member of the Resistance. Most military works like this.”

“So, just by virtue of being with the Resistance, I get free food?”

Poe nodded. “Well, yeah. You’re one of us. You’re risking your life by being here just as much as me or the General. Besides, the last thing you need to be doing when you’re on call for combat is worrying about where your next meal comes from.”

Rey nodded slowly, processing all this information. “...And you’re entirely sure I qualify for this?”

“Damn right you do. Look, Rey, even if you hadn’t risked your ass on Starkiller for us, we still wouldn’t turn you away from food. Food, water, you shouldn’t have to... those should just be your _rights_. Everyone should have the right to that much at least.”

They rounded the corner and the mess hall doors slid open, and Poe had definitely lost her as the smell of breakfast meats washed over them both.

“You’re sure I can just…?” She triple checked, and when Poe nodded she practically sprinted the distance between the door and the buffet.

 

Over the next few days, they made a routine of this. Rey would show up bright and early in the morning, and they would poke around for a few hours in the inner workings of one X-Wing or another. Between the two of them, they were well on their way to repairing the entire fleet. The work was good bonding - one would share a story while the other worked, trading places according to expertise and skill. BB-8 did have to consistently shoo them off to eat, and it was becoming clear that he thought of Rey as his charge just as much as Poe. Rey had won the loyalty of his astromech, and that was a particularly powerful thing to Poe. BB-8’s loyalty subprogram was impossible to overwrite.

Over their lunches, bit by bit, Poe explained the intricacies of military life, economics, trade routes, and politics to the scavenger. What the First Order was, beyond just ‘the bad guys’, the difference between the Resistance and the New Republic, even delving into basic history. Rey had a very unique point of view on these things, and asked really interesting questions, most of which threw Poe entirely off guard. She kept him on his toes, and he liked that.

Both of them very, very deliberately avoided the topic of stormtroopers. A mutual, unspoken understanding existed between them that the best cure for anxiety was a proper distraction and distance from the stressor - Finn’s recovery was going to take weeks at best.

After lunch they would go their separate ways for the day, Poe running drills with his pilots or taking care of whatever orders filtered out of General Organa’s office. (He checked in with Leia at least once a day, making sure she was eating, seeing how she was holding up - General Mom was tough as hell, but he could tell she really appreciated the gesture.)

All in all, it was a great placeholder routine for both of them. On day five, however, Rey interrupted Poe to point out an irregularity - a gold and red protocol droid heading his way through the crowd of the mess hall. C-3PO was Leia’s, it was rarely good news when he sought out someone else.

“Master Dameron, do you have a moment? I do hate to interrupt, but I need to have a word with you.”

Poe did his best to keep his apprehension off his face, but he knew damn well that the young Jedi across the table from him would know. “Yeah, sure thing Threepio, what’s up?”

“I have been instructed by the General to alert you if there is any sudden change in Master Finn’s condition. I have just come from the Medcenter --”

That was exactly as far as the protocol droid got before Poe was up and running, his face as pale as if he had seen a ghost. Rey flat out vaulted the table to follow suit, neither of them willing to believe what had just been implied. Rey ran much faster than Poe, swiftly overtaking him - he didn’t even question how she knew the way. His heart was in his throat as he struggled to cover the distance as swiftly as possible.

Yards ahead of him, he watched Rey’s retreating back helplessly as she skidded around the final corner into the Medcenter, bowling over a passing droid as he lost sight of her. His stomach dropped as he heard her cry out.

“Finn!”


	4. Finn - Awakening Early

Chapter 3 - Finn

Finn was incredibly comfortable for a very, very long time.

He had been cold, briefly - or burning, the sensations had mixed as he had lost consciousness. For a while after, all he had known was a dull ache, like pain from a distance. And then, all at once like some marvelous mercy, everything had gone calm and weightless, quiet and somehow… blue. It felt blue, as coherent of a thought as that was. He slept peacefully and dreamlessly until eventually, after time beyond measure, he grew restless. Finn felt ready to wake up, knew there was something, _something_ that he needed to be doing, some call outside of the peaceful blue calm that required his attention. That didn’t mean Finn was exactly pleased when gravity entered his world again.

Aah, Bacta, the smell of shit having gone horribly wrong. That smell was one of the first pieces of real sensory information that filtered through to him, and it gave Finn a whole hell of a lot of context to what was going on. He’d never had to be completely submerged in it before, had only encountered it in bandages and small treatments before this, but the smell was unmistakable. It gave him warning, before the ache set in, that he’d definitely had the shit knocked out of him in some way or another.

_Flashes of bright red light, sparking and unstable and unpredictable, relentless attacks and an inability to defend, and then searing hot pain along his back, collapsing into the snow as the monster turned its attention to his friend…_

That panic definitely did a lot to bring Finn around. Last he’d known, Rey was in danger, and that was some pretty quality incentive to get up and go. ‘Disoriented’ put it lightly when some soft yet insistent force kept him from getting to his feet.

It occurred to him presently that he might be able to open his eyes.

After a few minutes of blinking and rubbing at his eyes, (and since when did his arms get that heavy and difficult to move? Ugh.) Finn cleared away the worst of the blur in his vision. Once he was able to process that the world wasn’t just a vast field of blurry shapes and searingly bright lights, Finn identified that those were medical droids presently all up in his business. It would also turn out, interestingly enough, that the ‘strange force’ that had kept him from getting up was, in fact, a blanket. He was so fucked up that a blanket was an insurmountable obstacle right now.

He finally got the memo that one of the meddroids had been trying to talk to him for quite a while now. “Do you remember your name?” it had asked him about three times now.

“FN two one eight seven.” He replied automatically, then after a moment of consideration, amended his response. “Nah, forget that, screw that. It’s Finn. I’m Finn.”

“Thank you, Finn. Can you tell me how you feel?” The synthesized voice was a little grating on his nerves, but Finn couldn’t fault the thing for how it was made. At least it didn’t only beep or some shit.

“Um, a bit like someone’s hit me in the back with a table.” Finn managed a halfhearted chuckle at his own attempt at humor. “Real quick, though, I’m gonna cooperate I just want to know, where’s…”

_“Finn!”_

Finn whipped his head around just in time to watch Rey skid sideways into the room, hip-checking a droid out of her way as she barrelled towards him. That definitely managed to answer his urgent, burning question.

“Rey!” Finn made a valiant effort to sit up again, and it went marginally better than last time. He managed to pull himself up onto his elbows as Rey skidded to a stop at the side of the bed.

A couple of important things happened at once, amid a flurry of worried meddroids insisting he lay back down. Rey grabbed his hand, and that was. Oh wow. She was _crying_ , too. As Finn was convinced to lay back down, he caught sight of a flash of orange back at the door. Poe Dameron had damn near collapsed in the entrance, his hand on his heart as he leaned on the wall for support.

“Wh. What’s going on? Why is everyone so upset?” Finn had just returned to the world of consciousness and everything was happening so fast.

“We were _worried_ about you, you absolute twit!” Rey laughed, and oh wow, she was definitely still holding his hand. “For a moment there we thought you were going to _die_ , Finn. Of course we’re upset. But look at you! Here you are, alert and awake and…” She trailed off, scrubbing furiously at her face to get the tears to stop.

Across the room, Poe was peeling himself off the floor, heading over at a light jog just in time to catch the most dazed and bemused “You guys were _worried_ about me?” out of Finn’s mouth.

“Damn right, you scared the shit out of us there. How you feeling, kid?” Poe leaned casually on the edge of Finn’s bed beside Rey, trying to play it cool like he hadn’t just had a minor coronary. “You aren’t supposed to be up yet, not by a long shot. We were digging in to not get to talk to you for a few weeks at least, but you just sprung right back up.”

“You guys don’t have to worry about me, I’m nothing special.” Yep, that’s exactly what Finn was latching onto here. “I’m just glad _you two_ are safe. That’s what matters to me. I’m just a replaceable part.”

“Excuse you!” Apparently, Finn had just _mortally offended_ Rey. “You are _not_ replaceable and I will not _stand_ for you talking about my best friend that way! You’re a _good man_ , Finn, not just some stormtrooper.” She made the most frustrated sound in her throat and pressed her forehead to the back of his hand - Finn half guessed she was trying to hide that she was crying again.

He was crying too, not quite sure when exactly that had started. “Aah, no, I’m sorry Rey. I’m really bad at this, I’ve never had anyone give half a shit what happens to me.” He would have flopped back into bed if he wasn’t already laying down.

Sniffling, he turned his attention to Poe - did that man always glow when he smiled, or was it the residual drugs? “I’m really sorry, Dameron. I fucked up, your jacket got all destroyed on Starkiller.” He really did feel genuinely awful about that. He’d loved that jacket, and not just because it was the first unique piece of clothing he’d ever worn.

“Awuh great.” Poe pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to fight something off. “Now we’re all crying like a pack of idiots. I’m with Rey here, you’re what matters.”

“Be that as it may.” All three heads whipped around to find that General Organa had, in fact, been standing over them for some time. “You two,” she indicated Poe and Rey, “Really should have let my droid finish his sentences. I appreciate that this is a very emotional moment, but I need to shoo you two away for a bit. Finn may be conscious, but he’s still recovering, and as well meaning as this is, you have to give the medical droids room to work and poor Finn a moment to orient himself.”

“But mom, we-” Poe started to protest, but the General held up a hand to quiet him.

“No buts, young man. Both of you should wrap this up so Finn can rest. You actually do have to listen to the medical droids and get their permission to visit, those are the rules for a reason.”

Poe sighed heavily, resigning himself to it before he turned back to Finn. “We really did kind of rush you there, didn’t we?”

“We’ll be back as soon as we’re allowed, I promise, Finn.” Rey chimed in.

Both of them jumped slightly in quick succession, and Finn caught sight of an antenna bobbing around, the rest of what was clearly BB-8 hidden out of his sight for the moment. The little thing was insistently beeping and pushing at the shins of his friends - it was kind of cute. Finn liked that droid. Finn watched as BB-8 herded Rey and Poe out of the room, laughing and waving tiredly at the droid when it paused at the door to look back at him. Finn kind of wished he had learned Binary at some point, he wanted to know what it said to him.

For the next, oh however long, Finn quietly laid back and let the meddroids do their work, poking and prodding at him, taking blood samples, scanning him, asking invasive questions, all that good stuff. He sort of blinked in and out for a while, exhaustion catching up to him fast as simple muscle weakness turned into proper aches and pains. He’d been wrong - Finn didn’t feel like he’d been hit with a table, he felt like he’d been hit with a transport shuttle. But the important thing was, thankfully, all his nerves seemed to be in working order. He gleaned from the chatter between the droids that he was very, very lucky with the placement of the wound along his back - a few centimeters over and Kylo Ren would have sliced directly along his spine, and Finn would very likely be dead.

Apparently, it was a bit of a medical curiosity that he was awake at all right now. It was supposed to take him weeks and weeks, and he learned it had only been a little over five days since the injury. Finn had tried to express to the droids that he had always healed fast, always been able to pick himself up and shake off injuries, but they were very, very insistent that this wasn’t normal. He didn’t really have the energy to argue it.

Finn woke up without having realized he’d properly gone to sleep. It was late, the lights were turned down low and most of the droids were on their chargers for the night, only one or two patrolling the medcenter to keep an eye on the patients. Finn rolled over onto his side, grunting slightly at the bright hot flare of pain the movement caused before he settled into something akin to a comfortable position.

He scanned the room quietly, taking stock of his surroundings. It took a couple of mental passes of the room before it entirely clicked that he wasn’t the only person awake in the medcenter. In hushed voices, General Organa was holding a conversation with one of the meddroids, about a hundred feet away. The sounds must have been what woke him up, probably.

It was like she could tell he was paying attention to her - within moments of the realization, General Organa turned her attention to him, even bothering to walk over. Was it just him or did she look a little worried? _Why did everyone look so worried about him?_

“Finn, sweetheart, what are you doing awake? You shouldn’t be moving around too much, either. Are you in pain?”

He shook his head. “No ma’am, I’m not in pain, General.” It was absolutely a lie, but Finn was not about to admit any sort of weakness or deviation from the norm to a commanding officer, no matter how soft and welcoming her expression might be.

“You can call me Leia, Finn, and you don’t have to lie. I can tell, and it’s okay. You take as much time as you need, alright?”

Finn nodded slowly, trying and failing to understand why exactly she was being so nice. He found he didn’t really care about the reasoning - he trusted her. Felt safe around her. It was nice.

“What are you going to do with me after I recover? Do I have a regiment assigned already, or do I have to go through your training and get assigned?”

Leia sighed and took a seat - he worried briefly that he had displeased her in some way by asking. “I suppose I do need to talk to you about this, and I’m glad I have the chance to do so without Rey or Poe hovering - I don’t want you to feel pressured. You’ve been through a lot, Finn - more than most sapient creatures ever have to see. No one ever asked you if you wanted to fight in this war, and as far as I’m concerned, you have no obligation to the Resistance. You’re a free man, Finn, and anywhere in the galaxy you wish to go, I will arrange it for you. You can be safe now, dear.”

“Wow.” That? That was a lot to process. “Anywhere in the whole galaxy?”

“Yes, dear.” Leia laughed, and it was such a warm, maternal sound. Finn felt like he could ask this of her.

“Can I… stay here?” He ventured cautiously. “Can I be a part of the Rebellion? I want to help. If Rey and Poe are going to be fighting, I want to help too. Give me a skill to learn and I’ll master it, I promise.”

“Are you sure you want this, Finn? You just got out of the war, you deserve to live your own life.”

“I’m really, really sure, actually.” He’d made that decision when he’d chosen to go back into the base with Rey, Han, and the Wookie. “I want to join the Resistance.”

Leia still looked worried. “You… want to fight?”

“Hell no.” Finn laughed, a little embarrassed at how easily that had slipped out. “I don’t wanna hurt anybody, but like…” He paused, putting together how exactly to phrase this. “If the Resistance isn’t there to fight off the First Order, a whole lot of people are going to die. Way, way more than just me. And that’s scary, that is ridiculously scary, I would be a liar if I told you the idea of seeing a First Order ship ever again in my life didn’t scare me half to death. But someone’s gotta do it, or there’s not really going to be much of a galaxy left at all. And if Poe and Rey are willing to fight, are gonna put their lives in danger and do the scary stuff, well then, that’s where I want to be too.”

The General sat and contemplated that for a good long while, like it was something important to her, like his words were meaningful, and that was pretty much always going to blow Finn away - that people here seemed to think he was something special, something worth noticing and thinking about.

When she looked at him again, she was smiling.

“In that case, welcome to the Resistance, Finn.”


	5. Rey - Nightmares and Illness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have an extra long chapter as my Valentines gift to you!

_Rey stood in an otherwise dark room in front of a bacta tank, soft blue light shining only on her. Finn, asleep and peaceful, floated in front of her. A heartbeat later, she was quite certain he was dead - simply preserved in fluid. The light changed from blue to red as a distinct, unforgettable cross-shaped flame lit up behind the tank - a masked figure stepped forward and sliced through the tank, shattering it, coating everything in shards of glass and… sand, for some reason. Finn’s body still hovered in front of her, but he was the core of a fire, eyes open in silent pain…_

_A million strange cruisers flew through the sky, shooting each other down seemingly at random. Wreckage hit civilian buildings, and she felt life after life after life snuff out. A child ran screaming through the streets, looking for cover, looking for her mother and father, but…_

Rey woke with a jolt, scrambling to get to her feet before she quite knew where or when she was. Her heart was pounding so hard it was all she could feel, she couldn’t breathe around the panic. She couldn’t see a thing, couldn’t move, and after a moment of scrambling she fell hard, tripping over something hard and painful. The world swept out from under her feet as she tumbled down. Something was holding her, something had her bound up, and she clawed and ripped at it until she got free.

Dizzy and panicked and disoriented, Rey scrambled to her hands and knees, unable to stand up again before a wave of nausea overtook her. The time it took her to empty her stomach onto the ground was enough to bring her back to reality. She had been sleeping, she’d had a nightmare - her heart was still pounding in her chest but she knew where she was now. She retched long after her stomach was empty, struggling to catch her breath and take stock of her surroundings.

She’d absolutely wrecked her makeshift tent. Rey gathered now that she’d stood up too fast and become tangled in the tarps, which were now good and shredded. The ex-scavenger was quite distressed at the loss of food, but somehow the passing thought that she might have somehow hurt the plant life upset her more. What a silly thing to latch onto in a moment like this, but there it was. Rey might have hurt some moss or a tree and she felt _awful_ about that.

Rey sat on the cold, damp ground for a good twenty minutes before her pulse rate returned to something more akin to normal. She still felt ill, her head was still spinning a little, but it was good enough to get going - Rey was no stranger to working through pain or illness, even if the exact sort of awful feeling was a new one today.

Nightmare or no, she had a routine to attend to.

Exhausted and damp, Rey hauled herself into the hangar to find Poe already at work on the Blackbird. “Hey sleepyhead.” He was obnoxiously cheerful, and his voice almost grated on her nerves. “Toss me that wrench?”

“Yeah, sure thing.” Rey sifted through the disastrous mess of tools Poe kept at his workstation, flinching a little at the awful clanging it made. None of this made the pounding in her head any easier to deal with.

Poe filled up the dead air with his usual chatter, giving Rey time to rest, leaning against the wall and mentally thanking it for being so cool. Rey’s stomach was still turning, and inch by inch she found herself sliding further down the wall until she was just flat out sitting down. She was exhausted. She needed to rest. It killed her to just… ignore Poe like this, but maybe if she just closed her eyes for a few moments, she’d feel better.

She swore, she only zoned out for a minute before she felt a hand touching her forehead. Anyone touching her at all was usually a cause for alarm, and if her reflexes were working properly, she would have leapt to her feet and attacked. Lucky for Poe, her reflexes were basically fucked right now. All she managed was just being severely startled.

“Aah, kriff, you’re burning up, Rey…” Poe was kneeling in front of her, BB-8 hovering just behind him, and both of them were managing to look more worried than she’d ever seen them. She swatted away his hand indignantly. “Are you okay? I mean, you’re clearly not, you passed out on me…”

“I’m fine, Poe. Just tired is all.” Rey was a shit liar. How… how long was she out? She really didn’t want to ask. It would probably incriminate her further.

Poe looked like he had come to a decision, and Rey wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “Alright, so here’s what’s going to happen. You’re running a really intense fever, you passed out on me, so I’m going to take you to the medcenter. You can yell at me about this later.” And with exactly zero further warning, Poe slid one arm under her knees and one behind her back and picked her up.

“Excuse you!” Rey was, perhaps, a little more indignant than strictly necessary. If she were honest with herself, her head was spinning and being picked up was kind of nice, if disorienting. But everything was disorienting right now. “I am _perfectly_ capable of walking on my own, this is entirely unnecessary and incredibly undignified!”

“Humor me, alright kid?” To his credit, he managed to pass off all-consuming anxiety as levity very well. If Rey wasn’t Force sensitive, she might have believed that charming smile. “This isn’t exactly something you want to take lightly - you’ve been trekked halfway across the galaxy over the last few weeks, who knows what you’ve been exposed to.”

“And what if I’m contagious, hmm?” Rey relaxed just a little, trying in some measure to comfort Poe in the best way she knew - by playfully teasing him. “Aren’t you supposed to quarantine me? Now we’re both going to dramatically die of a common cold.”

“Didn’t you know I’m immortal? Mere germs cannot kill me. It would take at least a hundred Jedi.” Poe laughed, and it wasn’t quite a genuine laugh until BB-8 chimed in something to the effect of ‘I’m fairly sure that’s true’.

“Oh, well I had better get to work, lest you take over the galaxy yourself.”

“Yeah, you’d better. No dying early allowed, we have a melodramatic final duel to the death. Can’t die until then.”

Rey rolled his eyes, sensing the genuine worry behind the statement, and she lightly smacked his shoulder. “I’m not dying, I’m just the tiniest bit sick, Poe.”

“That’s great, and I believe you, I swear, I just want it confirmed by about a hundred medical droids first.” They were just around the hall, Rey could already hear them beeping. BB-8 helpfully scooted ahead of them to announce the new patient.

Something occurred to Rey, and her eyes lit up. “Does this mean I get to spend time with Finn? They can’t kick me out until I’m better, right?”

“Hey, that’s a helluva silver lining!” Poe laughed as he crossed the threshold into the medcenter. They were immediately mobbed by about a million meddroids - (in reality it was two and they kept a reasonable distance, but everything felt like too much right now) - and Poe had to maneuver to get to a bed to set her down.

On the one hand, bless him for settling her near Finn. On the other hand, Finn was now incredibly worried and sitting up, and getting fussed at by his own squad of meddroids for straining his injuries. “Hey, woah, what’s going on? Rey, are you okay? Poe, what happened?”

“I’m _fine_ , I just…”

“Collapsed with a fever.” Poe doubled his efforts at hiding the anxiety, passing it off quite effectively as affectionate harassment. “Very dramatic, freaked me and BB-8 out really good. It’s probably just a bad reaction to foreign bacteria.”

“And Poe is having a conniption fit over it, insisting on carrying me places like I can’t walk. Like I’ve never fought off a _cold_ before, _honestly…_ ” She scolded him in return, playfully punching him in the shoulder. Poe laughed and took a seat between both beds, letting the droids do their thing.

“Oh, well, that’s not _good_ but it’s not bad. As long as you’re up on your vaccinations, everything’s fine.” It was nice to see Finn smile, it was just plain phenomenal to be seeing him at all but hope fit his features much better than fear.

“Vaccinations? What are…?” She’d clearly asked something wrong, judging by the exasperated sigh mixed with incredible worry that the boys shared. Rey was interrupted by a meddroid asking permission to take a blood sample, indicating the fact that her arms were still wrapped in cloth. It was habit at this point. “Oh yes, of course. Here, let me just…” She unwrapped her arm for the droid and held it out helpfully. She’d seen blood get drawn a few times, and it only frightened her a little. But if Finn could manage it, so could she.

“It’s a shot you get that helps your immune system.” Finn explained. “There’s about a million different diseases that your body has no way of fighting off on its own, all from all different corners of the galaxy, and anywhere that has any sort of trade connection to other planets needs to give its people vaccinations so some alien disease doesn’t kill everyone.”

“It’s pretty much one of the only good things the Trade Federation has ever done, a few generations back they pretty much insisted the Senate clear funding for universal vaccinations. You’re not allowed to do over a certain amount of trade without having everyone up to date. It kind of stands to reason that a backwater place like Jakku skirts just under those limits.”

“No wonder I didn’t know what those were.” The bitterness in Rey’s voice was particularly sharp as the meddroid put a small bandage over the spot where they had drawn blood. “It doesn’t exactly matter if scavengers live or die so long as someone’s dragging parts in.”

“That’s really short-sighted.” Finn relented to the opposition against sitting up, opting instead to just roll over and talk to Rey that way. Between the one droid leaving to get Rey’s blood properly checked out and the one that was hovering over Finn settling down, the area cleared out significantly. “I mean, honestly. I grew up being a replaceable part too, but I got vaccines and medical care. I could be replaced if I broke but there’s no reason to put your troopers through extra danger, medical care is just as important to your labor as weapon maintenance is to your blaster. We didn’t even have _names_ but we had medical care.”

“First Order has a budget, though.” Rey pointed out. “And actually properly owned stormtroopers. Those trade posts were brutal but I was never officially anyone’s slave.”

“You _guys,_ lighten up a little, will you?” Poe looked a little pained to be hearing them talk so casually about themselves like this.

“Sorry, Poe.” They answered in unison, and Rey was just exhausted enough to burst into laughter at it, laying down on the bed properly. It turned out, that may have been a mistake, as giving her body even a moment to rest nearly put her to sleep. She drifted in and out for a moment until the grating voice of a meddroid got her attention.

“...a matter of informed consent, I need to explain what exactly I’ll be putting into your body. May I proceed?”

Rey shook herself off and blinked a moment, sitting up properly. “Yeah, sure, go ahead.”

What followed was the most absolutely meaningless set of words she’d ever heard out of a droid. The medical terminology was about ten times beyond what she was capable of understanding, but thank the force itself that Poe stepped in and offered the droid to present it in layman's terms for her.

“You’ve got a bacterial infection, so you’re gonna get a shot and have to drink some really, really gross mint-flavored goo to make it go away. They’re also going to get you caught up with your vaccines, you’ve apparently had _some_ of them, the ones a kid gets, but you’re missing some pretty critical ones. They’re gonna keep you here overnight to make sure you don’t have a bad reaction. You get to choose whether or not you wanna do this, since it’s your body and all, but I really suggest you do. You won’t be cleared for travel if you’re not-”

Rey held up a hand, signaling that she didn’t need to know any more, and offered her arm again to the droid. “I get the picture. I consent.” She only flinched a little at the shot.

She heard Finn mutter “That’s neat, that they ask…” under his breath, followed by a sharp pang of sympathy and pity from Poe. It was so nice to just _feel_ how much he cared about the both of them.

The meddroid offered Rey a small disposable cup filled with the goo Poe had accurately described. It was mostly liquid, and smelled strongly of alcohol and the strange, cold smell that Rey could only assume was this ‘mint’ that Poe named. After steeling herself for a moment, she downed the whole thing in one go.

“Woo! Minty….” Rey laughed and shook her head a bit, the taste overwhelming to the point that it made her eyes water. She smacked her lips a few times, trying to shake it. Poe and Finn both had clearly experienced this particular sort of special hell, judging by how hard they laughed at her reaction.

“You’ve got about five minutes before you pass the fuck out, I’m warning you. This stuff doesn’t play around - you’ll wake up feeling better, though.” Finn warned her through giggles. _How the fuck was he so cute?_

“Tastes better than the lake water.” She offered, and immediately got the impression she’d done something wrong by the look the boys both gave her.

“You drank the lake water?” Poe seemed mystified. “That explains a few things, but… why?”

“I camped out by the lake specifically to take advantage of the water supply…. is that wrong?” Apparently so.

“You… camp?” Poe seriously looked so lost at this simple concept, but Finn turned on him pretty quickly with indignant almost-anger.

“She didn’t get quarters?!” Finn demanded.

“Of course she got quarters, I just assumed….”

Finn slapped Poe lightly on the shoulder and Rey laughed, wishing she could lay down, but the meddroid wasn’t quite done stabbing her yet. She had to sit with her arm out and tolerate injections while the boys bickered.

“Dude, Poe, I was counting on you, you gotta _check_ with these things, she grew up on a backwater planet, of course she doesn’t understand this stuff.”

“That’s not the kind of question you think to ask someone, _Finn_ , it never occurred to me she wasn’t in her issued quarters. What was I supposed to do, just invite myself into her quarters to see where she was sleeping?”

“Well you could have, I wouldn’t have minded.” Rey wasn’t exactly feeling things like propriety right now - something about the light buzzing in the back of her head - and the absolute mental stall out that poor Poe experienced at her words sent her into a fit of giggles.

Apparently they kept talking after Poe mentally rebooted, leaving Rey to giggle and sit through shots. When the meddroid told her she was done, Rey laid down and went to roll over, to reengage in the conversation.

She was out like a light when her head hit the pillow.

_They were never coming. Tally mark after mark, sunsets and sunrises and they were never coming back. They had abandoned her to the sand, and she was being hunted. The same predator, dressed in black and wielding fire itself, he pursued her endlessly. Solid ground and cityscapes turned to sand and wreckage, Rey barely able to keep her footing as he chased her. The sand became heavy, became wet, until she was wading through muddy water, she could see the swamp turn to ocean, could see the island in the distance, but she couldn’t reach it, she would drown or be caught, her lungs already filling with water as she felt the heat of her hunter’s fire at her back, heard the crackling..._

Again, Rey woke to hands on her - this time on her shoulder, gently shaking her, and a soft urgent voice calling to her. “...Rey, Rey, easy sweetheart, come back to us…”

She sat bolt upright, panting and nauseous and frightened out of her mind, scrambling for something, anything to grab onto. She couldn’t see anything, wasn’t entirely sure where she was - but she knew whose voice that was, understood who was gently wrapping her up in his arms.

It occurred to Rey, as she caught her breath, that she had been violently sobbing. Her eyes stung briefly as a soft light clicked on, and Rey could see her surroundings.

Rey was still in the medcenter, but it was dark. Nighttime. Finn was sitting up, worry radiating off of him - BB-8 was rocking gently a few feet away, echoing the sentiment of worry. She was very, very definitely in Poe’s arms, and Rey was one hundred percent prepared to blame the color in her cheeks on fever as she peeled herself off of him.

“Nightmares, huh?” Something in Poe’s eyes told Rey he’d been through a few of his own. Rey nodded mutely in reply, and Poe squeezed her shoulder firmly, helping her ground herself. “Your breathing is really erratic, here, follow me…” Poe led her through some deep, relaxing breaths and after a while, Rey was managing to calm herself down.

“You were crying in your sleep…” Finn spoke up, helping to give her some context, helping her ground herself back in reality. “I couldn’t get up to wake you up, so I sent BB-8 to get Poe. It’s almost dawn, but I didn’t want to just let you sleep through it, it sounded like a bad one…”

“I don’t usually have dreams like that.” Rey confessed, her hands shaking, but she felt safe here and that’s what mattered. “They’re usually about water and islands and green, not…” She shuddered. “Not death and… and. Is there something wrong with me?”

Poe shook his head, smiling sadly. “Not a thing, dear. It happens to the best of us - I get them too. It happens after big, traumatic events - you’re trying to process what happened, sometimes your brain is less than helpful with that when you sleep.”

“Me too.” Finn chimed in. “Ever since Slip got shot. I keep… reliving it at night. You’re not alone.”

“What can I do to get them to stop?” Rey looked to Poe, hoping beyond hope he had an answer for her. Her heart fell a little when he laughed, and the sound was just so _exhausted_ …

“I wish I knew, kid.” He took a seat in the chair she hadn’t remembered him leaving. “I’ve just sort of… learned to live with it. Sometimes it helps to talk about it with people who understand, and time definitely eases it up, but it sticks with you. BB-8 helps me out, and I’ve got my own coping mechanisms, but…” He sighed and shook his head, and Finn reached out to grab Poe’s hand. It was such a sweet gesture, and she swore she saw a crack in Poe’s heart heal in that moment. “This is why we stick together, you know? I’ve been talking with both of you about things like resource management and safety in numbers, trying to explain in ways that fit with your old worldviews why we run things the way we do in the Resistance, but this is the core of it. War is messy - no one comes out the same on the other side. We look out for each other because we get it, and we fight so that no one else has to have nightmares like this.”

Rey understood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no talk, guys and gals and other pals. I’m incredibly giddy to point out that I’ve broken 100 kudos, AND 1,500 views! This is a huge personal milestone for me because it has been years since I’ve actually posted my fanfiction publicly, and the warm response I’ve been getting absolutely blows me away. If I could individually thank everyone who has read, I absolutely would.
> 
> The more observant of you may have noticed a few changes around here! I’ve implemented a more reasonable chapter naming convention that indicates the point of view character, I’ve revised and organized the tags a bit, and I’ve even polished up the summary. I don’t know if I’ll ever discipline myself enough to get a predictable upload schedule, mostly because I can’t resist publishing a chapter the instant I am done with it.


	6. Poe - The Falcon

Poe, Rey, and Finn spoke long through the night. Rey and Finn intermittently dropped in and out of the conversation, mind you - exhaustion was a powerful drug, and both his injured friends desperately needed rest, but if there was one thing Poe Dameron understood, it was not wanting to be left alone with your own thoughts a _little_ more than wanting sleep.

Hidden under a layer of truly awful jokes, a rather critical conversation was being had.

The longer they spoke, the more apparent it became that an ocean of cultural divide existed among them. Poe was a little humbled to realize how greatly he’d overestimated what constituted a ‘normal’ experience. Finn was so used to a group identity that the idea of a firm sense of self was alien to him. On the other end of the divide sat Rey, so acclimated to a life of harsh individual survival that Poe struggled alongside Finn to even begin to explain the fundamentals of group trust.

Poe learned he was in the minority, not a member of the ‘routinely starved through childhood’ club.

Poe and Rey were apparently abhorrently filthy gremlins to Finn’s standards - Poe laughed as Finn stared in horror when Rey asked what shampoo was.

It wasn’t like planet shattering secrets were being shared in the impromptu medbay sleepover, but as the sun rose in the sky outside, Poe felt like he knew Finn and Rey a lot better. At least he understood how much he had yet to learn, and that was a start.

Rey and Finn finally, finally synchronized their cat naps at about 5am, and the silence in the medbay was comfortable for a little over an hour. Poe, cozy in his chair, had almost drifted off himself when soft, familiar footfalls began to echo down the corridor. He sat up just as General Organa rounded the corner.

“Aah, good. Dameron, I wanted to speak with you.” She smiled warmly as she met his eyes, gesturing for Poe to come away from the sleeping pair. (Not that it did much, he took note of the distinct stirring of ‘faking continued sleep’ as he stood.)

“Yeah, General? Something up?” Poe kept his voice down - he had a feeling Leia had the worst sort of headache, judging by how she carried herself.

“Yes and no. I’ve just scheduled the memorial ceremony for the end of the week and sent out notice. I’m going to have a lot of people coming and going on base, and I don’t quite have enough hands to take care of everything that needs-”

“What do I need to do, how can I help.” He cut her off. It wasn’t a question, but a statement. “You know I hate resting on my laurels.”

“Thank you, Poe. I would do this myself, but I can’t dedicate the time the task requires. Lando Calrissian will be arriving later tonight, and one of the things he wishes to discuss with me is the fate of his errant ship.”

The air immediately got several degrees cooler as Poe parsed what was meant.

“The… the _Falcon_? No. No way, that’s not appropriate, I’m not going to-”

“Poe.” She cut him off there, softly raising a hand to silence his further protest. “Lando grieves Han’s loss almost as fiercely as I do. The pair were friends before I knew either of them. I won’t begrudge him for a moment his memorial of Han’s life, should he want it. I have my own memories, and very little use for the vessel.”

Poe opened and closed his mouth a few more times, wanting to argue further. It didn’t feel right, but… he guessed he saw what she was going for there. “....Alright, alright. Got the message.”

“Good, because I still haven’t asked my favor of you yet.” She chuckled softly. “As I was saying, I… regretfully, I don’t have the time to go through the Falcon to the extent it may need. Personal items, hidden contraband… I’d like it gone through before we may have to hand it over to its rightful owner.”

“Right, right. That’s, uh… that’s pretty heavy, Leia.”

“I know, and it’s why I wouldn’t ask just anyone to do it. If you’d rather not, I completely understand, and-”

“Nuh nuh no, I didn’t say that at all. It’s heavy, but I got it. Least I can do to help out.”

“You’re a boon and a blessing, thank you, Poe.” She reached out and patted him firmly on the shoulder. They shared a nod, and Leia turned to head back out into the world. Serving the galaxy’s needs before her own, as usual.

Poe stood in silence for a minute, gathering his thoughts, feeling… lost. This all felt profoundly wrong. You’re supposed to go down with your ship, not… not leave it behind. Especially a ship as full of personality as the Millennium Falcon. That beat-up old YT freighter had been Han’s home. Poe’s young-adulthood was filled with memories of the exact expression on Leia’s face every time that old rust bucket landed - (Something between fondness and harassment. A headache of affection) - and it felt like admitting that Han was actually _dead_ to even consider going through it.

Like a light rainstorm in a desert - that is to say, an unexpected blessing - Rey’s voice interrupted his brooding.

“If you think we’re letting you do that alone, you’re crazy.”

“Nah, no, nope.” Poe shook his head before he even looked over at the pair of ‘not sleeping’ idiots he was coming to love. “Rey, you’re sick. Finn, you’re injured. Neither of you are in any condition to - hey hey no!”

Rey had already gotten up _as he was speaking_. “Poe Dameron, I have climbed an AT-AT while moments from starving to death. If you think yesterday’s _mild cold_ is going to stop me-”

“I’m at least going to be reasonable.” Finn chimed in, pulling himself into a proper sitting position. “I, for one, feel way better than anyone says I rightfully should at this point, but you know, mobility devices exist and if BB-8 can follow you, then so can I. Look, there’s a wheelchair _right there_ that I can use. Motorized and everything.”

“C’mon, guys, you really don’t have to do this.” His protest was… _not_ enthusiastic. He didn’t relish doing this alone, and he had a feeling they understood that.

“You spent _all night_ lecturing me about group cohesion and now you’re going to turn around and tell me I _shouldn’t_ help support you while you cope with a loss?” Rey raised an eyebrow.

“Who taught you how to back-sass, Sunshine?” Poe teased, gently raising his hands in surrender. “...Alright, alright, I give in. Here - Finn, if you’re going to do this, at least let me move the chair over and give you an arm to support you. And if _either_ of you start looking sick, I am sending you right back.”

Poe had a sinking feeling, as they both verbally agreed to his terms, that it meant both of them would just hide symptoms.

* * *

It felt _surreal_ to step back into the Millennium Falcon. The last time Poe Dameron had been in here, he’d been eleven years old and hot on the heels of one Ben Solo. A pair of military brats goofing around where they shouldn’t be, cherishing one of the last free summers before Poe would go off to flight school and Ben would leave him behind to go be a Jedi.

He was two feet shorter the last time, and the whole place looked like it had shrunk. The sound of his feet on the metal grates was the same, though. His company kept him out of his own head too much - Finn and Rey making soft conversation with each other as they ascended the on-ramp, the motorized whirr of Finn’s temporary chair accompanied by BB-8’s soft concerned beeping.

“Alright, Poe. Where do we start?” Rey looked at him questioningly before glancing around. He could _see_ the scavenger instincts kicking in.

“There are a lot of hidden compartments on this thing, so I’d say we start there. It’s where anything flagrantly illegal will be stashed, at least.”

“Oooh, _illegal_.” Rey perked up at the words, BB-8 chiming in with something equally rebellious.

“Do I need to be concerned?” Finn asked, and it was clear he was at least a little bit serious about the question.

“C’mon now, buddy. Half of what we’re doing here in the resistance is technically illegal.” Poe teased.

“Oh. Right.” Finn needed to stop being cute when he was embarrassed.

The three of them - four if you count BB-8 - split up to inspect the main cargo chamber, gently banging on walls and trying to peel up bits of floorboard to find hidden stashes. By some luck, Poe found the first one - a side panel with a loose screw just fell right off when you hit it right.

“Dingdingding, we have contraband.” Poe laughed, holding up a few metal bars. “Fake credit bars, Han Solo you cheeky bastard.”

“No fair, _I_ wanted to find the first one.” Rey all but whined, looking just a little put out about it.

“What can I say, looks like scavenger instincts don’t translate to smuggler very well.” He teased in return, watching Rey double-down in enthusiasm for the task at hand.

A few minutes later, her enthusiasm was rewarded with a discovery of her own - a false bottom in a set of drawers. “Oooh, ooh, what are these?” She held up a document frame, and Finn wheeled over to check it out.

“Well, either he was just casually storing some pretty rare historical documents, or our man Han was talented at forgery.”

“Forgery, definitely. Especially if - yep, they’re imperial.” Poe recognized the old-style cog from a distance. “I might circulate those around later in his memory - he always did get a kick out of scamming imperial fanboys out of their money.”

“Do it. Absolutely do it.” Rey encouraged him, a gleam of mischief in her eyes. “And use the money to help fund the rebellion.”

“Oooh, good plan.” Finn laughed.

And you know…? You know what the worst part was about all of this? Poe was actually having a good time. Laughing with his friends, honoring the best smuggler the galaxy had ever seen… it didn’t feel like a funeral, not yet.

Not until he leaned on a door frame and happened to glance down.

Starting about two feet off the ground, a collection of level score marks decorated the partition between rooms. Each labeled in sloppy knife-carved script with a name and a date. Ben, 8ABY. Ben, 9ABY. Ben,10ABY… up and up and up, cutting off sharply after he would have been… what, twelve? And above that, Leia, Han, Luke, Chewie….

Poe felt like he’d been stabbed. Like someone had just plunged a knife into his gut and pulled up until the blade hit his heart, split him open for everything to spill out. He had to quickly cover his mouth to prevent a very loud sob from escaping, but the sound still attracted the attention of his friends. He didn’t even have it in him to care.

There had been a family here. A family, and peace, and… and fuck, he felt like he was going to throw up. This wasn’t supposed to have ended, this wasn’t supposed to go like this… Yeah, sure, he could handle that his own childhood had gone in the gutter, that was whatever, but… but the Organa-Solo’s had been _happy_ , they’d been his best friend and his best friend’s dad and his best friend’s mom and…

And in his heart there was a distraught child who still didn’t understand why bad things had to happen.

For some damn reason beyond his own comprehension, Poe turned and went in the room this doorway guarded. The closest thing to personal quarters that the Falcon had - _Han’s room_. Not many people would see anything of value in here. Just sentimental clutter - Poe didn’t even know the stories behind most of it, he just… he knew it mattered. Somehow, it still had to matter, right?

Aimlessly, he sifted through it - aware he was being watched from the other side of the door. He didn’t know what he was looking for until he pushed aside a pile of white cloth on a shelf and found it.

A tiny, well-loved toy X-wing. Hand-crafted, made of wood and glued back together countless times, paint inexpert and sloppy and chipped, but still there. Silently, reverently, he scooped it up in his hands and…

Poe left.

He just turned and walked right out of the Falcon, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that Leia would be outside. She had a sense for these things - call it the force, call it intuition, he didn’t know and he didn’t care, he just knew she’d know to be there.

And as sure as the sun rose in the morning, there stood Leia Organa, heart heavy as he presented her with the tiny treasure.

In the shadow of the Millennium Falcon stood two last-survivors of broken families, united in grief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a few years, but it felt like time to get back to this.
> 
> I loved The Last Jedi. It wasn't anything like I expected, but I loved it to death anyway. I had a rough time with the fandom back in '16, and '17 was a year of transitions for me - for a while there I'd all but set down Star Wars. TLJ lit the fire again, and I hope to actually finish this fic.
> 
> That being said, I want to announce my intention to make this a proper TLJ rewrite. Not that TLJ wasn't wonderful in its own way, mind you - but consider IOTMF a love-letter to the version of TLJ we all walked into the theater expecting to see. I intend to use a lot of the characters and elements TLJ introduced, but mix it up with my own plot structure and events. A re-imagining if you will.
> 
> I hope this chapter was worth the wait. It was one of two chapters I envisioned when I set out to write this fic in the first place, and I think the pressure I put on myself to perform is what psyched me out in '16. Who knows, maybe I was just supposed to wait to write it!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for stopping by. If you enjoyed yourself and want more, I cannot overstate how much commenting boosts my spirits.
> 
> My Star Wars tumblr can be found at themasteroftheknightsofren.tumblr.com


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